The Sorcerer's Apprentice: Picasso, Provence, and Douglas Cooper - Hardcover

Richardson, John

4.02

89 ratings by Goodreads

9780224050562: The Sorcerer's Apprentice: Picasso, Provence, and Douglas Cooper

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0224050567 ISBN 13: 9780224050562

Publisher: Knopf, 1999

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The Sorcerer's Apprentice is John Richardson's vivid memoir of the time he spent living with and learning from the deeply knowledgeable and temperamental art collector, Douglas Cooper. For ten years the two entertained a circle of friends that included Jean Cocteau, W. H. Auden, Tennessee Williams, and, most intriguingly, Pablo Picasso. Compulsively readable and beautifully illustrated, this book is both a triple portrait of the author, Cooper, and Picasso, and a revealing look at a crucial artistic period.

Originally published by Knopf
1999 ISBN: 0-375-40033-8

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Review:

Two quotations from Francis Bacon bookend this curious, exasperatedly affectionate memoir by John Richardson, distinguished art historian and 1991 Whitbread Award-winning biographer of Picasso: the prophetic "she'll try to lure you to bed, and then she'll turn on you. She always does," finds its uncanny conclusion in "Didn't I warn you she was a thoroughly treacherous woman?" The sorcerer (art collector Douglas Cooper) and his apprentice (Richardson) lived for 10 years in the grandiose "folly" Ch�teau de Castille in Provence, where they entertained a circle that included Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, Angus Wilson, Tennessee Williams, and a range of other usual suspects from that period's artistic fraternity. When Richardson left Cooper for the lights of New York, Cooper, in the great tradition of spurned lovers, burned Richardson's remaining possessions, stole his paintings, denounced him to friends and employers, and even attempted to arrange his arrest by Interpol. Cooper was a duplicitous, sadistic bully (among his more outrageous acts was loudly booing the queen outside Westminster Abbey at her coronation). But his deep knowledge of art history and classical cubism and his pioneering collecting of the works of Picasso, Braque, L�ger, and Gris were an essential counterpoint to the staid policy of the Tate Gallery and its director, Sir John Rothenstein, for whom he held a deteriorating scorn. Richardson's delight in reviewing this formative period reignites the fire in Cooper flaring nostrils and borrows some of its flame to stoke what is arguably an enriching addendum to his Picasso magnum opus, which, appropriately, bears a dedication to his old sorcerer. --David Vincent, Amazon.co.uk

From the Inside Flap:

The Sorcerer's Apprentice is John Richardson's vivid memoir of the time he spent living with and learning from the omniscient but irascible art collector, Douglas Cooper. For ten years the two entertained a circle of friends that included Jean Cocteau, Isiah Berlin, Fernand Leger and, most intriguingly, Pablo Picasso. Compulsively readable and illustrated throughout, this book is a triple portrait of the author, Cooper, and Picasso, as well as a revealing look at a crucial artistic period.

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